But even the contribution of community and
common good to equitable access to adequate health
care is not without its limitations and drawbacks. Is the
community responsible to provide adequate health care
even to those persons who flagrantly ignore their individual responsibilities? And, how can individual responsibility be separated out from public pressure created by
the advertising of unhealthy products and behaviors like
smoking? How can individual responsibility be separated
from peer pressure, psychological weakness, genetic predisposition etc.? In the U.S. we have a culture of “victims.”
Intravenous drug users and overeaters and anorexics and
alcoholics claim not to be responsible for their health
problems. Rather than being removed from community
responsibility lists, they claim the right to added community support for healthcare based on their self-declared victimhood
. Besides, the ethics of the medical profession
has always required doctors to treat persons in need without judging their responsibility for their problems.